Kinetix Physical Therapy sought to increase physical therapy income and grow its practice. It faced increasing competition, reduced physician referrals, and declining reimbursements.
Competition Increases and Physician Referrals Dry Up
When Tony and Melissa Cere, owners of Kinetix PT, first joined Breakthrough, they faced increased competition and dried up physician referrals.
They were in the process of building a new clinic. But at the same time as as they were breaking ground on their second location, a local hospital opened up a clinic across the street. Previously, that hospital had been their biggest referral source.
So at the same time as they were preparing to open a new clinic, their biggest referral source dried up and they faced increased competition.
“With the clinic opening up across the street, we were just like, oh you’ve got to be kidding,” Tony shared.
Traditionally, they had done a lot of physician marketing. But they knew they could no longer rely on that as a source of new patients.
The Ceres wanted to find a new way to get the word out to the community and let them know how PT can help.
“So that was kind of the challenge, is just getting the word out to people and letting them know they can come directly to us versus having to market heavily to physicians,” Tony said.
Filling Schedules and Space with Direct-to-Consumer Marketing
As it turned out, the increased competition and declining physician referrals did not slow down growth for Kinetix PT.
“With Breakthrough, we were able to just grow like crazy and not even see a dip. We were just getting people in the door and really just filled up our clinic. We were overprescribed and bleeding over into the new clinic once it was open. So we over doubled the size of our practice in a two-year span. That was really cool.” —Tony Cere
Kinetix PT leverages Breakthrough’s Growth X product to get the word out on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. They also leverage Breakthrough’s Patient Demand Software to run email and text reactivation campaigns to their patient list.
“Email campaigns are really helpful to get patients in the door,” Tony said. “Just the ability to have multiple ways to get people in. We can increase our ad spend if we need to increase spots getting filled.”
Increasing Physical Therapy Income While Gaining Time Freedom
When Kinetix PT joined Breakthrough, it was generating $946,000 in physical therapy income. Within two years, its annual revenue was up to 1.8 million. Today, it’s at $2.8 million.
“We’ve had steady growth and we’re just out of space at this point. We’re opening a up a third clinic that’s going to allow us to again double the size of our practice. So we’re really excited about that,” Tony said.
While the practice has grown, its owners, Tony and Melissa, have been able to step away from treating and focus their time on working ON the business, not in it.
“Prior to Breakthrough, I was seeing patients full time and also running the practice with my wife,” said Tony. “We have two kids. And I was just busy all the time and thought that was normal.”
Through Breakthrough, Tony networked with a lot other practice owners and realized that many had more time freedom. He learned that with a properly trained team, your staff can take on a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities in the clinic, freeing up your time to work on important aspects of the business.
“It’s hard to give up that idea that patients want to see only you. That was a hard thing for me. But I’ve worked really hard on trusting people on our team to take on more. I’m now able to have a lot more flexibility in my schedule to be able to work on the business,” Tony said.
Attracting Better-Paying Patients to Increase Physical Therapy Income
Before working with Breakthrough, the Ceres hadn’t looked closely at their average revenue per patient. But with the new time freedom they had, they were able to start looking more at their business and finances overall.
There were 3 key areas they focused on to increase average revenue per patient:
Increasing Physical Therapy Income by Filling Schedules and Space
The Ceres knew they needed to fill schedules and space. But what they didn’t realize was how filling up their space, and even building a waitlist, could help them increase average revenue per patient. With greater demand for their services, they were able to be more selective about the insurance providers they work with. They dropped their lowest payers and filled their schedules with more patients from their best payers.
Increasing Physical Therapy Income by Adding Cash-based Services
Prior to Breakthrough, Kinetix PT had never looked at cash-based services. Being part of the Breakthrough community and learning from other practice owners, they were able to see that the results and the research showed that laser therapy could help improve patients’ quality of care. In addition, offering laser therapy and other cash-based add-ons increases average revenue per patient.
The Ceres started with the Lightforce Laser in 2017. The first full year they had it, it added $109,000 in new revenue. They decided to get another laser, and now do more than $220,000 a year from it. They’ve also added other cash-based services such as a wellness program and hands-on diagnostics (HODS) to generate a total of $340,000 annually from cash-based services.
“We’ve had patients coming in just for cash-based services and then they end up becoming physical therapy patients,” Tony said. “Breakthrough’s email campaigns are really helpful for getting the word out about our laser cash services. To make a big investment like that, you’ve got to know you can bring in the income. With Breakthrough, we didn’t have to worry.”
Increasing Physical Therapy Income by Renegotiating Reimbursement Rates
With that extra time Tony’s had since reducing his treatment hours, one thing he’s been able to work on is increasing reimbursements by negotiating his insurance contracts.
It’s time a lot of time and perseverance, but the Ceres have been able to work with all of their work comp and commercial payers to renegotiate rates and increase reimbursements.
“We’ve gotten our revenue up from $80/visit to $90/visit even with the Medicare cuts. Other people are seeing decreases and we’ve been able to increase it. We’re hoping to get that up to $100/visit. So being able to take time to work on that, it makes a big difference when you start to look at the numbers,” Tony said.
By increasing patient demand through marketing, adding cash-based services, and renegotiating reimbursement rates, Kinetix PT has successfully increased physical therapy income and consistently fills schedules with better-paying patients.
